Which year would you prefer to play in?

[Ian Absentia]

Reviewing the current poll numbers (albeit with limited sample size), one emerging trend is becoming clear.

Grognards ruin everything.

!i!

Edited May 19, 2020 by Ian Absentia

[Crel]

5 minutes ago, Ian Absentia said:

Reviewing the current poll numbers (albeit with limited sample size), one emerging trend is becoming clear.

Grognards ruin everything.

!i!

On the one hand, I don't think this poll (or its current result) is the consequence of Grognardy Most Foule. Even if I find it unsettlingly easy to imagine Bill cackling madly over a hektogram...

On the other hand, a preference for the classic setting in the poll doesn't surprise me in the slightest. My perception is that most of BRP Central's active community members are fans from before RQG's publication, and fewer are new to the system/setting.

[Jeff]

3 hours ago, Tindalos said:

Given we're more and more told that all the interesting gods and mythology only existed in the First Age, I'm inclined to agree on that last point.

You really consider Elmal the only interesting god and mythology?

[dumuzid]

If i could choose any Gloranthan era to set a game in, it'd be Kethaela in the Greater Darkness

[Tindalos]

21 minutes ago, Jeff said:

You really consider Elmal the only interesting god and mythology?

No. I consider Doburdun, Humat, Heliacal, Balurga, or Riyesta equally interesting. It's just Elmal as a good example.

An age when total homogenization had yet to happen.

[Akhôrahil]

58 minutes ago, Tindalos said:

No. I consider Doburdun, Humat, Heliacal, Balurga, or Riyesta equally interesting. It's just Elmal as a good example.

An age when total homogenization had yet to happen.

I was similarly interested in pre-Theyalan Talastari gods, and thought gods like Hagodereth, Hethana and Varnaval seemed intriguing. 

[GAZZA]

15 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

This became an enormous headache in the original World of Darkness, where most published campaigns turned into "the PCs get to stand around watching the fan-favorite NPCs do the important stuff". I was involved on the sidelines for V5, and a major piece of the design was "we have to avoid that, and make the game about the PCs again".

We'll see how the Argrath Campaign handles things, but unless handled deftly, there's a huge risk that the timeline of the future gets nailed down in detail, that the PCs can't do anything about it, and that the important people (i.e. not the PCs) get all the plot focus. I liked how KoS/HW/HQ did its very best to avoid that, with its multiple-choice Argraths.

I think Exalted had the best idea - essentially "the game starts here, and while we will fill out the setting, there is no metaplot for the future". 

I don't have a problem with metaplots per se but I do question whether the people that create such things wouldn't be more comfortable as novellists rather than game designers. Any GM worth his salt has had his carefully laid plans creatively annihilated by his players and that's part of the reason GMing is fun.

The main issue with metaplots is not "having a plan for what happens" - many good scenario design guidelines involve that. You have "here is what the villains are trying to do, here is where the heroes start" and depending on what the players do, some things will happen according to plan and others may not. The issues with metaplots, as I see it, are twofold. Firstly, the sense of inevitability and the consequent feeling that you're not running the game "right" if things go off the rails (e.g. if the PCs kill Garrath Sharpsword, and you feel as a GM that you need to figure out some way to get him Resurrected even if they did the Grisly Portions on the corpse). Secondly, since metaplots never involve PCs, the sense that NPC actions are what drive them.

You can run campaigns where the PCs actions are ultimately futile and they are doomed. I wouldn't say that's exactly "fun" but it can be entertaining - I've never played CoC myself (and likely never will) but I understand that's pretty much the situation there, and it certainly seems to have been what the Werewolf The Apocalypse writers were after too. However, I suspect most players, most of the time, would rather play heroes that could actually make a difference, even if it's only a small one. Even the most "kick in the door, kill the monster, take his stuff" dungeon crawling game eventually evolves to the PCs caring about what happens to the town where they spend their loot, in my experience, and certainly RQG with the family history tables attempts (successfully!) to instill this sort of wider focus right out of the gate.

But you have to start somewhere, and 1625 isn't innately a terrible time to set a campaign (certainly I understand the implicit desire to make a fresh take rather than just cover the old ground again). As long as it doesn't become Kallyr and Argrath's story with the PCs just along for the ride, and I don't have any particular reason to believe that anyone is making that mistake.

 

Edited May 20, 2020 by GAZZA
well/will

[Leingod]

I feel like the difference between the Elminster and WoD examples and how I've seen Argrath used so far are substantial enough that I'm not really worried about the metaplot sidelining anyone's characters, personally. So far, there aren't many actual published adventures I've seen where all the focus is on what Argrath or Kallyr or Leika are doing and the heroes are just being pushed from one set-piece of NPCs doing things to another. Quite the opposite, in fact; in general the actual adventures I've read seem to do a pretty good job at making whatever the heroes are doing feel like it's very important, even if it's not the most important thing going on in Dragon Pass at that exact moment.

It's not like there's any suggestion, even in King of Sartar, the book all about the story of Argrath, that Argrath was at all the most interesting places doing all the most interesting things at all times. It even provides the easy "out" to let your group do one or more of Argrath's claimed deeds by bringing up that Argrath is a title and whoever the Argrath was, they probably didn't do everything Argrath is said to have done and were just credited with that stuff much later.

This has come up in discussions about Pendragon and the GPC, too, and I think the same general advice I gleaned from there applies: Don't treat it as if everything that's written down in there has to come up in your own campaign. Certainly don't think it has to take center stage. Your campaign is the story of your characters; Argrath is the hero of his story, not your story (unless you want one of your characters or even the group itself to be the Argrath, in which case that problem is solved a different way). And just because Argrath defeats a Lunar army doesn't mean your group has to beat two or else what they're doing doesn't matter.

[GAZZA]

Plus there is the fact that the metaplot of Glorantha is a lot more interesting that WoD, and Argrath isn't just a Gandalf/Merlin clone.

But yeah, I agree @Leingod that your suggestion is a perfectly good way to handle it. Personally as far as I'm concerned I'm not even sure Argrath exists IMG (there will likely be a dude called Garrath Sharpsword, because I want to run the Cradle, but it may not be Argrath and I'm not 100% sold on even that much). Kallyr does, because she was the one who had the failed rebellion (I have no problem with NPCs that fail at things ). But I'm partial to Super Rune Quest so I want my players to do the world shaking stuff - it's certainly absolutely fine for GMs that want to focus on more localised things and arguably they even have better mechanical support than I do.

[Leingod]

That said, I've got no problems with going earlier than RQ:G is with a campaign. After all, I'm a spry young'un who only got into this a few years ago, so what is old to many is still about as new to me as the actual new stuff. But I can certainly see why the writers would want to move the default timeline along, at least.

[Lordabdul]

1 hour ago, GAZZA said:

Firstly, the sense of inevitability and the consequent feeling that you're not running the game "right" if things go off the rails

If there's one thing that Glorantha does, it's that its scope and depth makes it easy for a GM to feel inadequate or unprepared, and not running the game "right", yes. The mantra of "YGWV" is awkwardly trying to address that but is only marginally successful as far as I'm concerned. When it comes to my own experience with this, what I realized is that I was mistakenly being anxious about GMing Glorantha "right" in terms of having all the correct facts and cultures and history and NPCs and such when... really it wasn't about it. It was just being anxious about GMing Glorantha "right" in terms of successfully making my players like the setting as much as I do. And succeeding at that has only a passing correlation with getting all the canon right.

In comparison, I ran a Star Wars campaign a few years ago for a group where a couple of the players were big Star Wars fans, one of them a qualifiable absolute fanboy. Virtually zero anxiety. Because I don't really like Star Wars and I don't care about Star Wars. If I get something wrong, they'll correct me, we change this and that, and keep playing. It's a lot easier when you don't care that much about the setting, and only care about making the players happy and entertained

1 hour ago, GAZZA said:

You can run campaigns where the PCs actions are ultimately futile and they are doomed. I wouldn't say that's exactly "fun" but it can be entertaining - I've never played CoC myself (and likely never will) but I understand that's pretty much the situation there

Common misconception: you're conflating the hopelessness and futility of humanity in the face of cosmic horror with the futility of a character's actions in a predetermined storyline. Those are completely different things. Characters in Call of Cthulhu have as much agency on the world and on the adventure as in any other game -- what makes their actions "futile" is that they can't ever "win" against the horrors from beyond (because, frankly, if they did, that would be the end of the game! ) and, more importantly, because they are "doomed" in the sense that the biggest difference between a horror game and non-horror game is that, in a horror game, player characters mostly get worse with time, not better. But they can definitely do things and affect change. Well, to some degree... if you play in the 1930s (and we often do!), good luck trying to stop the rise of Nazism and the start of WW2... how's that for a metaplot...

[Rob Darvall]

3 hours ago, Leingod said:

I feel like the difference between the Elminster and WoD examples and how I've seen Argrath used so far are substantial enough that I'm not really worried about the metaplot sidelining anyone's characters, personally. So far, there aren't many actual published adventures I've seen where all the focus is on what Argrath or Kallyr or Leika are doing and the heroes are just being pushed from one set-piece of NPCs doing things to another. Quite the opposite, in fact; in general the actual adventures I've read seem to do a pretty good job at making whatever the heroes are doing feel like it's very important, even if it's not the most important thing going on in Dragon Pass at that exact moment.

It's not like there's any suggestion, even in King of Sartar, the book all about the story of Argrath, that Argrath was at all the most interesting places doing all the most interesting things at all times. It even provides the easy "out" to let your group do one or more of Argrath's claimed deeds by bringing up that Argrath is a title and whoever the Argrath was, they probably didn't do everything Argrath is said to have done and were just credited with that stuff much later.

This has come up in discussions about Pendragon and the GPC, too, and I think the same general advice I gleaned from there applies: Don't treat it as if everything that's written down in there has to come up in your own campaign. Certainly don't think it has to take center stage. Your campaign is the story of your characters; Argrath is the hero of his story, not your story (unless you want one of your characters or even the group itself to be the Argrath, in which case that problem is solved a different way). And just because Argrath defeats a Lunar army doesn't mean your group has to beat two or else what they're doing doesn't matter.

I note that both Kallyr and Leika, the well established NPCs, get sidelined and Argrath of Pavis/Whitebull/some-other-vague-ekename sits as a place holder for ...the PCs. If they fail then "Argrath" succeeds pushing the metaplot forward and handing you plot hooks. If the PCs succeed then "Argrath" succeeds and the metaplot hands you the next plot hook in the form of Argrath's next challenge. 

PCs can become the messiah {1} (and /or very naughty boys) depending on their own actions. It's not that Argrath assumed some of what the players do, it's that what the players do makes them "Argrath". They become liberator/messiahs to go on to greatness or be crucified (or both) depending on their actions and the roll of the dice.

For my purposes it's the plot hooks that matter. If the canon generates them well and good. If my players derail them "Argrath" means I still have ways to run the Cradle/Windstop/Dragonrise without forcing my players into a set outcome for THEIR adventure.

{1} Concept{2} shamelessly stolen from Andrew Logan Montgomery  Six Seasons in Sartar https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/313871

{2} The multiple messiahs concept also underpins Monty Python's Life of Brian; as the final long shot can imply.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Rob Darvall

[g33k]

I could be happy with either, personally

But I have the strong belief that -- if you're talking about a  Jonstown Compendium  supplement, and you're asking because you want to interest the most people -- you "should" choose a post-Dragonrise sandbox.

I think RQG (in the 1625ff era) is where most of the players are, these days.  OTOH, it's also possible (given the grognardia of the forums &c) that the  JC  customers aren't representative of RQ players in general...?

[GAZZA]

I'm with @g33k - if it's a quality supplement I'll buy it regardless of what year it's set in. I'm comfortable enough with YGMV to pull events ahead of time if need be.

[jajagappa]

9 hours ago, lordabdul said:

what I realized is that I was mistakenly being anxious about GMing Glorantha "right" in terms of having all the correct facts and cultures and history and NPCs and such when... really it wasn't about it. It was just being anxious about GMing Glorantha "right" in terms of successfully making my players like the setting as much as I do. And succeeding at that has only a passing correlation with getting all the canon right.

Yes! 🙂

5 hours ago, GAZZA said:

if it's a quality supplement I'll buy it regardless of what year it's set in.

Agreed.  I was very happy with Six Seasons in Sartar which is set in 1619.  Of course, it can be utilized in other times equally well with some modifications.

What I don't have is unlimited bandwidth (already running two campaigns) or years in which to run a campaign, so for me the most value will be with supplements that readily enhance existing campaigns or provide interesting ideas as I advance into the Hero Wars.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

As for PCs lack of agency compared to the big heroes, yes, that is a potential problem.  Various scenario writers (thanks Nick!) are doing their best to help this.  IMO, which I doubt Chaosium will follow, the best approach would be for Lunar Assassins to finally succeed and kill Argrath.

"Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to"

[g33k]

RE the problem of the NPC's being the Big Damn Heroes:  I'm interested to see how Chaosium handles the Argrathsaga that (AIUI) is being developed.

I've got no problems with the notion that the PC's can become the "movers and shakers" of the Hero Wars, competing with (or even replacing) Argrath, Harrek, Jar-Eel, & others.

I've got no problems with those figures being essentially "plot devices" rather than "NPCs" as such.

I've got no problems with the notion that the PC's will be primarily reactive, leaving them perpetually on the 2nd tier, watching as Harrek shrugs off Sunspears and slaughters the Solars casting them; as Argrath Illuminates, and learns Sorcery and Draconic magic and more and more Deep Secrets, forges the SMU, &c.

[Akhôrahil]

49 minutes ago, g33k said:

I've got no problems with the notion that the PC's will be primarily reactive, leaving them perpetually on the 2nd tier, watching as Harrek shrugs off Sunspears and slaughters the Solars casting them; as Argrath Illuminates, and learns Sorcery and Draconic magic and more and more Deep Secrets, forges the SMU, &c.

Even if Hero rules come out with the GM book, it’s hard to see how the game could support rules for actually-superhero PC levels. HQ can, but RQ surely breaks under the load long before that.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

"Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to"

”The old world is over”, as HeroWars told us again and again. I love those quotes, and how the game told us the future was wide open (as opposed to defined in metaplot).

”The old world is over, and we must become dragons to survive.”

”The old world is over, and the new world must be freed of its pain.”

”The old world is over. Harrek killed it!”

Edited May 20, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

the best approach would be for Lunar Assassins to finally succeed and kill Argrath.

Some examples I have seen:

A Forgotten Realms campaign starting with how the PCs find Elminster crucified and dead.

A Star Wars campaign starting with describing how Luke missed his Death Star shot.

[Bill the barbarian]

Again thanks everyone for posting and opining, and voting (y’all voted yes?) 

A quick request. As a rule I like conversations that derail and take interesting sideways drifts. In fact I have often said a "Bill the barbarian Joint" is a great place for side-trips. This one is a little different, the comments should stay closer to topic, and reflect the poll questions. I have a little invested in the results and opinions. 

Cheers all!

[Borygon]

On 5/20/2020 at 8:59 AM, g33k said:

But I have the strong belief that -- if you're talking about a  Jonstown Compendium  supplement, and you're asking because you want to interest the most people -- you "should" choose a post-Dragonrise sandbox.

Or better yet, set it in a region that is irrelevent to the larger Argrath centric metaplot. Why not setup module in Redlands? Or in Charg under the ban? Chen Durel.... Guide to X is pretty much an infinite money printer.

My current game is set between Talastar and Northern Aggar and uses king based year counting (like in six ages) instead of Theyalan time, when my players deal with all I have planned I will reveal that it is year x and a large group of warriors with curved swords is going to war with some girl called Argratha, and they are hiring.

[pachristian]

I set my game as starting in 1612, in Pavis. Half of my players are old Runequestors, and half find it very new.

I told the players right off the bat that "Argrath" is a title, not a name, and that I was following canon Glorantha unless a player-character steps in and changes things. So yes, your character can be the Argrath. 

The big advantage I have is that as the major events of the world are defined up through 1625 or so, I have a political and social backdrop that my players are made aware of. 

[Thaz]

I've run and played both. And in fact still am. 😄 Why not both?

 

[Bill the barbarian]

5 minutes ago, Thaz said:

I've run and played both. And in fact still am. 😄 Why not both?

 

Well, this is a novel idea, but it does have flaws,

Being as this is meant for a sandbox set in Sartar the classic period is set in a nation occupied, while the modern would be a setting of a liberated nation. Much work would have to be doubled and scenarios would have to be tailored to both settings or generic or be useless in one of the settings.  The leaders would need to be doubled up and all while being the same price (who wants to pay more for material that they will not use?). If it was written as a Great Sartar Campaign this could work, but... Thanks for the idea but as stated I am not sure it would fly.

Cheers